Something of a Druthers
by Lafayette1777
Summary: Adams sees something that only confirms her growing need to leave Princeton-Plainsboro. Some Chase/Park. A companion to "Times of Crisis", but can be read separately. Post finale.
1. Verdict

Maybe if she hadn't seen it, it wouldn't have happened.

She'd been the first to leave the pub the three of them had decided to grab a drink at. They were just making small talk, and so not too long after they came in exhaustion and boredom won over, and she said good night to them. Maybe a touch of that third-wheel feeling had her leaving early, too. That feeling that seemed permanent lately.

The night was humid, but chilled. It was early in the morning. She was weighed down with the kind weariness that made every foot fall on the wet pavement a kind of agony that didn't quite reach words.

Jessica Adams found her car quickly in the small lot, and yanked open the sticky driver's side door. She fell into the seat, throwing her bag carelessly into the passenger side. It toppled over, spilling it's contents on the floor of the car. She didn't have the energy to do anything but close the door and sit there, staring at the sepia colored parking lot.

Park appeared after a while, coming from the direction of the pub. She saw the smaller woman grope around for her keys, but Adams didn't call out to her. Her mouth couldn't move anymore today.

She didn't really make a conscious decision to lean down and pick her things up off the floor, righting her bag and placing her cellphone, ID badge, and a few tampons back inside the appropriate pockets. She sighed as she stretched down to scrape them up off the carpet. Her half a beer didn't do much in perking her up, in the way Chase thought it would've.

She straightened up again in her seat, fingers searching for the ignition, when she froze again, her eyes locking on the area around Park's car, thirty feet in front of her.

Oh yes, Adams was definitely a third wheel.

Shit.

Park and Chase were embracing, clearly spontaneous in their nature. Their lips were pressed together fervidly, with a deep, lustful, intensity that Adams could hardly say she'd experienced herself. They didn't appear to be having sex yet, but after seeing that, Adams couldn't imagine either ending up alone in bed tonight.

She had a white knuckle grip on the steering wheel as she drove home.

Lying in her own bed, she stared at the darkened ceiling, sleep evading her. Three months, since Chase had become head of the department of diagnostics. Three months, since Gregory House had died in a warehouse fire with a heroine addicted patient. Three months, since James Wilson had taken his final leave of absence.

Three months, in which Adams had had to endure working for someone she was in love with, someone who clearly didn't have any interest in loving her back. At least, not anymore.

She knew she couldn't keep this up for long. Maybe that little scene was the kick in the pants she needed to get her to realize where her relationship with Chase was going.

They used to be together all the time. Always sent out as a pair to get blood or do any MRI. They looked good together. Two beautiful people in love made everybody swoon. When it was one-sided, not so much.

House had gone, and Chase had fallen back on Park, for whatever reason, and soon they were always together, running errands, eating lunch, treating patients. They had their private jokes and secret shared looks and rituals no one else understood. Sure, they looked funny together, but they also looked happy. Park had done something Adams couldn't, and that was get Chase over House's death and back to being a professional.

And now this. Snogging in a parking lot at two in the morning. That was devotion, if they were anywhere near as tired as Adams was.

The universe is just cruel, she thought, looking at the white textured ceiling with the blankets pulled up to her slender chin. Of all the signs that could've been sent to tell her it was time to leave Princeton-Plainsboro and quit crushing on her boss, the one that would injure her the most had to be chosen.

She felt tears gathering in her eyes, but suppressed them and rolled over onto her side. She slept for sixteen hours straight.

When she awoke in the early evening, she knew what she had to do.

**Author's Note: Alright, so there'll be probably one or two more chapters to this. Just a little post-finale idea. Please review!**


	2. Detach

"I need to talk to you."

Chase looked from his laptop screen to glance at the woman standing in the door of his office.

"Of course. Come in." He closed the page and faced her as she took a seat on the other side of his desk. Adams said nothing, but slipped a single sheet of paper across his desk.

He read the top line, printed in standard bold, and then met her eyes again, seeming shocked.

"Why?" He asked simply.

"I just...need a change of scenery." He caught her lie easily, but didn't push it, at least, not immediately.

"Do you need a letter of recommendation, or anything?"

"No, no, but thank you. They've already hired me. I'm leaving tomorrow morning."

"Where are you going?"

"Burlington, Vermont. Fletcher-Allen hospital, in pediatrics."

"Sounds nice."

"Should be. Small, at least, but respected." She tried to smile.

"You've talked to Foreman?"

"Yes, this morning."

"And the others?"

"I'll make an announcement before I leave today. I just wanted to make sure I turned in my Notice of Resignation to you first." _And got a chance to say good-bye._

"Yes, thank you." he paused, as if carefully debating his next words. "I just...can't understand why. Is it something about the way I'm running the department? Because you can always tell me."

"No, it's not the department. I miss House, I guess, but you're running it well. It's, well...it's nothing. I-I...it doesn't matter."

"If it didn't matter, we wouldn't be sitting here." He said it with finality, not to get more information out of her. In that moment, she knew he'd figured it out. And it proved her point. He said nothing, didn't try to stop her. She loved him. He couldn't return it. Not now, not ever. It was better that she was leaving, probably for both of them.

"Thank you for the heads-up." He said, referring to the Notice of Resignation form on his desk. He stood, and offered her a hand to shake. "It's been nice working with you. And good luck in Vermont."

"Thank you." She replied quietly, and shook his hand gently. She blinked away what might have been the beginnings of tears.

"I'm sorry." He said, as she turned to leave.

"It's not your fault." She forgave in a small voice, because it really wasn't his fault at all. For being pretty, or nice, or good at his job, or getting along with her. Or saying no to her offer of a drink and yes to Park's.

She left his office without another word.

m m m

Taub was at a nurse's station, snapping off a pair of blue, latex gloves. He greeted her with a smile, which she returned grimly.

"Something wrong?" He asked. She told him the easy answer. He didn't press for reasons.

"You'll be missed." He said genuinely, shaking her hand. "Good luck, and I hope I find what you're looking for."

It seemed there were no secrets in the diagnostics department.

"Thank you. And you too."

Taub watched her go, a sadness etched on her face. He felt a deep sympathy for her. An unfairness that someone so beautiful should be so heartbroken. He'd seen her forlorn looks, her faux content when Chase would divide them so he could be with Park for whatever diagnostic duties they were to perform. Maybe Adams was just too much like Cameron for Chase to be able to return her feelings, to make something real.

Then he thought of the happiness that filled the room whenever Chase and Park were together, which was often, and thought that maybe for someone to have that kind of love, somebody else would have to give it up. Park and Chase were more than just flirting. They needed eachother.

That's why Taub knew Adams would be okay. She didn't need Chase to be happy, and though she probably didn't agree with that right now, she'd recover.

m m m

Park was in the clinic, pulling the chart on her next patient, when Adams approached her.

"Hi." Park said, in her usual unreadable way. They'd never gotten along beyond tolerating eachother during work. Never really friends. Adams couldn't bring herself to hate the other woman, it was not her fault she had "stolen" Chase. It was nobody's fault. That cold, resigned feeling, had come with the realization that she had no one to properly blame.

"Hey." Adams caught her before she could head toward an exam room. "Do you have a minute?"

She lead her past the waiting room and into the mostly empty lobby.

"What's going on?" Park asked, suspicious.

"I just need to tell you something." She told her the same thing she'd told Taub.

Park was silent for a moment, unmoving, then she did the strangest thing Adams could think of.

Park took two steps forward and hugged her tightly. Adams had to bend down a bit, because of the height difference, but she ended up hugging the other woman right back, tears dripping down her face.


	3. Forever

_Two years later:_

If Adams thought New Jersey was cold, then Vermont was unbearable.

Two years working in Burlington, and she still hadn't gotten used to putting on two coats, a hat, scarf, leather gloves, and knee high boots just to run out and get her mail from the end of the road. And it was only October.

She half ran, half skidded on the black ice down her driveway, huddled against the wind as she yanked open the mailbox. She didn't look at any of it until she was back in the front room of her small house, stripping out of her winter clothing.

Bills, catalogues, this month's _Scientific American. _She didn't get much personal mail. She hadn't talk to anyone in New Jersey in months, and her family usually called her if they wanted to talk.

On the bottom of the pile, though, she found something hand-addressed.

She recognized the handwriting. The script didn't matter, the return address told all, as it happened.

She ripped it open without hesitation.

It was simple, but elegant. She didn't pinpoint Chase or Park as someone with an eye for design or decoration, but clearly someone had planned out the invitation well.

The date was two months from now. A December wedding. That sounded like them. She wasn't sure why.

There was a picture. Chase and Park, arms wrapped around eachother in a place that she could only assume was somewhere in Australia, because the sun never shined that bright in New Jersey. The height difference was funny to look at, but she doubted they even noticed anymore.

Adams glanced at her watch. She looked down at the mail back RSVP, and quickly checked the _Yes, I will attend _box.

She only had a few minutes to get ready, so she pulled a brush through her hair, touched up her make-up, and changed out of her scrubs into a blouse and skirt.

She checked herself in the mirror, before hurrying toward her car. She had a date tonight.

m m m

Chase and Park were climbing the stairs of their apartment building, talking over a case as they did so.

"It's not lupus." Chase told her.

"Or sarcoidosis."

Park had a handful of mail in one hand, and began to look through it.

"Foreman and Dawson RSVP'd." Park said. "Together, of course."

"They live together, don't they?"

"I think they moved in together." She shrugged. "You would know better than I."

Eve Dawson had taken Adams' place in Diagnostics, and had been going out with Foreman for about a year.

Cameron had sent in her RSVP as well, and would be taking along her husband and daughter. Lisa and Rachel Cuddy's had come in the week before, along with Thirteen's, Taub's, Masters', and several others.

"Hey, look at this." Chase was in the midst of unlocking their door, but looked down at the small envelope Park was holding out to him. She had already split it open, and he took it from her to read.

Jessica Adams was attending their wedding.

Chase raised his eyebrows. "Wow."

"That's what I thought."

They'd been on the fence about inviting her. On one hand, it was rude to ignore her, seeing as she was a friend to both of them. On the other, would it be more rude to rub it in her face that she would never have Chase?

They entered the darkened apartment, changing out a of work clothes and into t-shirts. They ate a small dinner at their kitchen table.

"I hope she's happy." Park said sincerely, taking a sip from her wine glass. "But I guess that's easy for me to say, seeing as I got the guy."

Chase looked at her, in her faded Nirvana shirt with dark circles under her eyes, short hair unbrushed. "I don't know about Adams, but I'm happy."

**Author's note: Well, that's the last chapter. Hope everyone enjoyed, and please review!**


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